Raghuveera, Ponnala made PCC chiefs - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: After days of intense deliberations, the Congress on Tuesday formed separate State units for the yet-to-be carved out Telangana and residuary State of Andhra Pradesh. Interestingly, it named two BC leaders as their chiefs.

If former minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah will be the chief of the first Telangana State Congress Committee, another former minister N Raghuveera Reddy will head the party in the residuary State — Raghuveera's impending coronation was first reported in these columns.

In this exercise, the Congress high command has taken care to keep leaders of all castes in good humour. In Telangana, it appointed N Uttam Kumar Reddy as working president while former deputy chief minister C Damodar Rajanarasimha will be the chairman of the its election campaign committee.

Manifesto committee will be headed by former minister D Sridhar Babu. In Seemandhra, Union Minister Chiranjeevi will be the chairman of its election campaign committee while Dokka Manikya Varaprasad would be its co-chairman.

The manifesto committee would be headed by former minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy and its co-chairman would be union minister Panabaka Lakshmi.

The choice of Ponnala as TPCC chief is a clear indication that the Congress wants to work with the TRS — the separatist party chief K Chandrasekhar Rao may not find it difficult to work with Ponnala.

Sources said this also means an alliance between the two parties is very much on the cards despite the recent war of words. However, the Congress has balanced the equation by making Uttam Kumar Reddy as TPCC working president.

Rajanarasimha represents the SCs. When it comes to Seemandhra, Raghuveera Reddy, a BC, in place of incumbent Botcha Satyanarayana, a Kapu, is seen as an attempt to woo BCs back to the party fold.

Nonetheless, in the balancing act, the Congress made Chiranjeevi, a Kapu, chairman of its election campaign committee perhaps in the hope of preventing the Kapu exodus to the TDP.

To wean away Reddys from YSR Congress chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, the party made Anam Ramnarayana Reddy president of its manifesto committee. Panabaka Lakshmi, an SC, as its vice-president completes the picture.

These appointments appear to be in line with the Congress strategy of embracing the underprivileged - BCs and SCs as part of its 'social re-engineering' in the two regions.